Land Use 2025 - RhodeMap RI

PREFACEPurposeLand Use 2025: State Land Use Policies and Plan is the State of Rhode Island’s plan forconservation and development in the 21st century. This plan challenges Rhode Islandersto work collectively to design, build, and conserve the State's communities andlandscapes over the next twenty years and to ensure that they are of a caliber RhodeIsland deserves.Land Use 2025, as an official document, is the major connective State Guide Planelement in Rhode Island’s planning and development system. The Plan articulates theState's over-arching goals, objectives, and strategies to guide and coordinate the land useplans and regulations of municipalities and State agencies and to direct good, strategicprojects at both the State and municipal level.This Plan’s New ApproachRhode Island’s interconnected State and municipal planning system, in effect for morethan a decade, provides the framework and process for this plan. The early 1990s weredevoted to the creation and adoption of Community Comprehensive Plans in all 39municipalities, followed by new zoning regulations and new ordinances for subdivisionsand land development. In the past 18 months, 29 communities have adopted newaffordable housing plans as part of this State-municipal system.While many of Rhode Island’s past plans have promoted shared concepts for statewideland conservation and community development – including the two previous State landuse plans, dated 1975 and 1989 – much of the effort has revolved around process andpolicy consistency. With this Plan, the State Planning Council asserts a more prominentrole in orchestrating statewide land use planning and promoting public investments inareas that can best accommodate growth.The central premise of this Plan is that our current rate of land consumption is a majordeparture from our historic pattern of dense urban centers, and is not sustainable in thelong and short term. It reflects the growing realization of the urgency for Rhode Islandto plan, develop, and conserve more intelligently as our very small State adjusts to thepace of the dynamic Northeast urbanized corridor and its strategic position between theregional hubs of New York City and Boston. The Plan is intended to connect theplanning visions and goals “to the ground” in Rhode Island communities, to upgrade theplanning capacity of public officials and citizen planners, and to share land useinformation publicly through the best available technology.Recognizing the complexity of the work and the naturally competing interests andjurisdictions, the Statewide Planning Program firmly believes the Plan’s implementationmust be through a cooperative effort. Cooperation and compromise in pursuit of sharedLand Use 2025: Rhode Island State Land Use Policies and Plan (April 2006)v